Earl Daret was up at the crack of dawn this morning, and when looked of his house to his adjacent five-acre field he was excited.
“I seen that deer out the door,” Daret said. “He was chewing grass.”
The Lacombe hunter quickly got his rifle, and popped off a shot. The deer streaked into the nearby woods, but left evidence that it had been hit.
Daret rounded up help, including a tracking dog, and went after it. Almost three hours later, the crew found the deer crippled but alive. They quickly dispatched it.
That’s where the story takes a turn. While celebrating the kill, Daret began checking the deer out.
“I got to looking at his rack, and I said, ‘I ain’t going to mount this deer,’” he said. “He looked like he had a regular doe neck.”
Upon investigation, it was discovered why – the deer was, indeed, a doe.
“He didn’t have no package,” Daret said. “He couldn’t sow his oats if he wanted to.”
The deer’s rack was pretty nice for an hermaphrodite, with an inside spread of about 14 ½ inches and decent mass.
“I was kind of dumbfounded,” Daret said. “He’s big-footed like a buck, but he’s not no size to his neck.”
Former state Deer Study Leader Dave Moreland said the kill isn’t unprecedent..
“It’s uncommon, but it’s not rare,” Moreland said. “It happens probably more regular than an albino. Usually they have a small rack, but it does happen.”
